Pacific Bound... my visit to Australia and New Zealand

It is hard to believe that I have visited 11 countries in just over two months, and even more hard to believe that there are still 4 more to go! I am back in Asia now, after my visit to the 'P' in AP. First stop was Australia and the city of Sydney. Now the last time I was in Sydney was 2001, my first year in AIESEC, and I attended the Australian Model United Nations Conference with a group of friends from AIESEC New Zealand. I shared this story a lot of time while I was in Aussie, that on the last day of that trip I was mugged at lunch time in the city centre. After my trip back I am glad I didn't let that experience be my last impression of Sydney, as I found myself learning to really like Sydney, despite the very quick visit.

The first sign I was entering the Pacific part of the world was arriving in Sydney airport, and when going through immigration I was allowed to go through the Australian... and New Zealand passport lane (although back home in NZ it is called the New Zealand and Australian passport lane instead :P). After going through customs the first stop, after dropping my bags off at the MC flat and some opening meetings, was the Pie Shop. Yum yum yum, nothing beats a great meat pie which I have been missing for the last six months. Chowing down on a good pie is something that I used to do regularly back home in NZ (maybe too regularly...). It is funny to say this, but my country visit was really my first indepth interaction with AIESEC Australia since I joined AIESEC, which is strange considering that Australia is the closest country to my home country. It is strange that AIESEC countries with such proximity to each other do so little with one another considering the distance the countries have to the rest of the world.

The Australian visit also got me back in the habit of Australasian style nick name, for example, Ralph (MCP) becomes Ralphie, Michael Chen (VP F) becomes Chena, and Ruth (VP X) becomes Ruthie. Nothing like a "a" or "ie" at the end of someones name to make you feel like you are at home. One of the highlights of the visit would have to be the office Christmas party, with Santa making a visit, fortune telling, a kissing booth, lucky dip presents and my personal favourite... origami, the party had everything needed to generate the warm Christmas feeling. Ralphie made a fantastic Santa (although dont tell anyone who might be scared of the prospect of Ralphie coming down their chimney this Christmas :P).

After a great visit to Aussie it was then time to head a little further south, homeward bound to Wellington, New Zealand. Back in Wellington after 6 months with AI, it was a weird feeling touching down. In a lot of ways it did feel like a home coming and in other ways it felt like Wellington was no longer my home. These feelings became even stranger as I arrived at 100 Kelburn Parade, which has been the MC house for 6 terms now, including 2 of my own. It was an interesting experience doing a country visit for a country I had only been MCP of just 6 months prior, but what made it even easier to keep my AI Director hat on was the fact that the team is doing quite well for themselves.

In NZ I got a real pie... a steak and cheese pie. In short supply in Aussie but everywhere in NZ. Beefy goodness with melted cheese inside, I was in heaven as I ate several of them :P. Oh... and one of the weirdest events of the whole visit happened to me... in no country yet have people got my name wrong (except maybe the occassional Brian instead of Ryan which is forgivable), but after an evening in NZ a series of photographs were sent of the dinner with Jeff. Who is this man Jeff I wondered, when I realised that Jeff was indeed me :P. Funny that after 6 months away I am already a Jeff now :P hehehe.

After a good visit in Wellington it was my first weekend off, and time to head on an overnight bus to my hometown of Huntly. Huntly is a large town for NZ standards, but if I talked to the Indian guys in the office about it they would probably call it a village... if that. It was great seeing my Grandparents again, and in a way the trip was awesome in that it gave me a chance to comtemplate how much my life has changed since I left Huntly at the age of 9 to go live in Indonesia. I suppose in all of our lives there are some defining moments like that which radically alter the path our lives are taking.

So now I am in Singapore getting some quality time with my laptop before I head off to Colombo, Sri Lanka. Indian Sub-continent here I come! Stay tuned for the last leg of my visits in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan!